Michelsen Anne Marie, Hakansson Franziska, Pedersen Lund Vibe, Kirchner Marlene Katharina, Otten Nina Dam, Denwood Matthew, Rousing Tine, Houe Hans, Forkman Björn
Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg C, Denmark.
Four Paws International, Vienna, Austria.
Anim Welf. 2023 Jun 26;32:e47. doi: 10.1017/awf.2023.37. eCollection 2023.
Animal welfare is of increasing public interest, and the pig industry in particular is subject to much attention. The aim of this study was to identify and compare areas of animal welfare concern for commercial pigs in four different production stages: (1) gestating sows and gilts; (2) lactating sows; (3) piglets; and (4) weaner-to-finisher pigs. One welfare assessment protocol was developed for each stage, comprising of between 20 and 29 animal welfare measures including resource-, management- and animal-based ones. Twenty-one Danish farms were visited once between January 2015 and February 2016 in a cross-sectional design. Experts (n = 26; advisors, scientists and animal welfare controllers) assessed the severity of the outcome measures. This was combined with the on-farm prevalence of each measure and the outcome was used to calculate areas of concern, defined as measures where the median of all farms fell below the value defined as 'acceptable welfare.' Between five and seven areas of concern were identified for each production stage. With the exception of carpal lesions in piglets, all areas of concern were resource- and management-based and mainly related to housing, with inadequate available space and the floor type in the resting area being overall concerns across all production stages. This means that animal-based measures were largely unaffected by perceived deficits in resource-based measures. Great variation existed for the majority of measures identified as areas of concern, demonstrating that achieving a high welfare score is possible in the Danish system.
动物福利越来越受到公众关注，尤其是养猪业备受瞩目。本研究旨在识别和比较商业猪在四个不同生产阶段中动物福利受关注的领域：（1）妊娠母猪和后备母猪；（2）哺乳母猪；（3）仔猪；（4）断奶仔猪至育肥猪。针对每个阶段制定了一个福利评估方案，包括20至29项动物福利措施，涵盖资源、管理和动物相关措施。在2015年1月至2016年2月期间，采用横断面设计对21个丹麦农场进行了一次走访。专家（n = 26；顾问、科学家和动物福利监管人员）评估了结果指标的严重程度。将此与每项措施在农场中的流行率相结合，结果用于计算受关注领域，即所有农场中位数低于定义为“可接受福利”值的措施。每个生产阶段确定了五到七个受关注领域。除了仔猪腕部损伤外，所有受关注领域均基于资源和管理，主要与猪舍有关，可用空间不足和休息区地面类型是所有生产阶段普遍关注的问题。这意味着基于动物的措施在很大程度上不受基于资源的措施中感知到的缺陷的影响。被确定为受关注领域的大多数措施存在很大差异，这表明在丹麦体系中实现高福利评分是可能的。
